a uniform and see their clothes up close and maybe wear perfume?
“I’ll send word when I need her,” the countess said, ignoring Mamka’s hand. “And I will pay five kopecks if this reading is good. I’m no miser.”
Mamka smiled. “Good, then.” With the burst of energy she always showed at the beginning of a reading, she pulled the cord from the deck, peeled off one card and smoothed it onto the plank. I stood on my toes to see it, for this was my favorite part.
“The first card tells your past.” She set down the fish card, upon which a glistening pink carp jumped from a blue sea.
Mamka smiled and stole a quick glance at the countess. “The fish is a very good card. It is a strong symbol of wealth.”
The countess frowned. “Wealth? A blind man could see that. My husband is a cousin to the imperial family, so of course you see wealth.”
“The next card will tell the present,” Mamka said. She pulled another card from her deck and slid it onto her plank. It was the child card. One of my favorites, it held a little boy in a feathered cap running with a hoop and stick.
“A new family member has joined you,” Mamka said. “With you for two years now.”
The countess breathed in a quick gasp of air and then pulled a fan from her sleeve and snapped it open with a crack. “This is true. Though he came too soon. What more?”
“Well…”
The countess shimmied her chair closer to the bed. “Out with it. I insist.”
“It’s a child, a boy.”
A child! Envy curled around inside me. How lucky this countess’s daughter was to have a baby boy.
The countess fanned herself vigorously, causing the candle flame to run away.
Mamka looked heavenward with a radiant smile, like one of her martyred saints painted on gilded board. “He was born on a bed of poppies under a silver sky.”
“This is true,” the countess said. “The bedsheets bore red flowers; the canopy of the bed was silver. You truly are gifted! Now tell me when there will be another birth.”
Mamka set the deck of cards on the plank, her brow creased. “And that is all. I’m tired.”
Was she getting one of her bad feelings?
The countess snapped her fan closed and tucked it back up her sleeve. “But I came all this way on flooded roads. A mangy wolf chased me half the way.”
“The wolves are hungry. Your gamekeeper kills all the elk—”
“And I ruined my boots in your mud. You’ll tell me nothing of the future?”
“I can’t—”
“There’s an extra ruble in it for you if you do,” the countess said.
Mamka stared at her, rubbing the pack of cards with her fingers.
“Tell me what’s to come or I won’t find a place for your daughter after all.”
Mamka stared at the wall, still as a painting, and then took up her cards once more. “If you insist, we will see the future.” She placed one down with a little snap.
The fox killing the dove.
Mamka looked into the countess’s eyes. “Four girls will fall on their stones.”
“What girls?” the countess asked. “I have only two daughters. I don’t understand.”
“The big ones and the small.”
“You make no sense at all.”
Mamka turned another card onto the plank.
The ship.
“This card tells of travel,” Mamka said, a furrow in her brow.
The countess smiled. “More travel? To Paris, I hope.”
Mamka circled the water on the card with the tip of one finger and fixed her gaze on the countess. “It says the boy child will be cleaved from its mother.”
The countess held her dog tighter. “I don’t understand.”
“It says the child will cross water four times before he can rest. He will only be safe when he is under the torch.”
“There must be some mistake,” the countess said. “What torch?”
Mamka’s fingers trembled as she took the next card from the pack and placed it on the shadowed end of her plank. “The next card is most important, so heed it well.” She lifted the candle from the bedside table and angled it downward, squinting at the card. The flame jumped and cried wax onto the board.
The scythe.
A shiver of dread ran down my back.
“Oh—” Mamka handed me the candle and pushed the plank away as if she’d been stung and the cards slid to the bed. She slumped back, one fist to her mouth and waved the countess away. “Go now.”
I held the candle closer to the bed where the offending card lay faceup on the bedcovers. It